The
recent kerfuffle (covfefe?) over comments from self-appointed pastor
Margaret Court highlights the achingly slow but hopefully inexorable progress
religious groups are making on LGBTI issues. To be sure, we’re not hearing anything
especially enlightened from Sydney Anglican Diocese, but there are prominent Anglican, Uniting and even Catholic voices throughout Australia defending the rights of LGBTI folk and promoting marriage
equality. There are progressive Muslim voices, too.

I was
at a Trans Fair recently in Brisbane, where transgender clergy from mainstream
denominations mingled with many and varied trans folk from all walks of life
(including Qld Police – how far we’ve come since the Joh days!). At lunch with
some parents of trans teenagers I got talking to one lady who was the daughter
of a Baptist pastor and was herself still very religious. She and her transgender
daughter had, after extensive searching, found a Pentecostal congregation in
Brisbane willing to accept them without an agenda of ‘praying away the gay’ or conversion
to some God-given ‘normality’. Another parent, a Muslim, was just as strong in
support of her son’s gender transition and future life as a gay man.